“…fanatically difficult modern prose wasn’t her thing” (p. 87)Nor mine – I don’t mind saying for the record, right up front, here and now (and before you waste another second on this review if “fanatically difficult modern prose” is, in fact, your thing.I’m clearly behind the times on what constitutes “literature” these days – and I’ll be the first to admit it. I suppose The Information is just another example of what’s called “postmodern.” If so, I hope it’s the last I stumble upon. Or into. Or over.What I also didn’t know, however, is that we in the Colonies clearly have no monopoly on snarkiness. I know – as well as the next person – who wrote The Hunting of, but I thought the employment of that particular verbal acrobatic was a Yank thing – sort of like working out with barbells on Venice Beach in little more than a G-string. Martin Amis has singlehandedly cured me of an illusion first planted in my ailing brain by the likes of Paul Auster and Don Delillo.Par for the course with Martin Amis is this paragraph on p. 43: “I was there in the fog. The fog was sorry about it – the fog was wretched about the whole thing. Like the fathers(,) the fog had nowhere else to go. Ancient and stupid, but equipped with new chemical elements and contributions, the fog loomed and idled, hoping it wasn’t in the way.”Or this one – just six pages later: “Wait. Richard’s face veered up with an animal snarl. Jesus: that fucking guy. Twice every weekday, at irregular hours, a big man in a big car drove down Calchalk Street at sixty miles an hour. What was his hurry? Who could want him anywhere sooner than he was going to get there already? He had his jacket on a hook. He had a wide-pored vest beneath his sleek white shirt. He had an outscrolled underlip and a fat nose and fair brows and lashes, like a cool new pig they’d knocked up in a lab somewhere. Richard got to his feet to watch the man rip by: an animal hating another animal. He comes here twice a day, thought Richard. He comes here twice a day, trying to kill my kids.”I mean… the sentiment is all right – as is the description of Richard’s somewhat histrionic (not to say ‘hysterical’) reaction. But how on earth can Richard get a fix on this guy when that same guy is driving by behind a windshield and at “at sixty miles an hour?”I believe they have a word for this kind of faux pas in the world of cinema – moreover, that the person responsible for keeping tabs on it wears the label CONTINUITY on her sweatshirt or baseball cap.And just in case you needed a reminder – or at least a refresher – on this piece, we have the same thing again almost word for word on p. 181.And is there something “postmodern” about the following pair of sentences (on p. 121) that I’m just missing? “Richard thought he would probably end up with Anstice. He thought he would probably end up with Anstice.”I’ve read it over five times now and am simply dumbfounded at how dumb I feel for not getting the significance of the repetition. That, or the copy editors at both Random House (London) and Harmony (New York) were so blinded by the brilliance of the rest of the book, they simply missed this little erratum.Not to mention the second instantiation of it on p. 131: “(h)e had been in wrong rooms before. He had been in wrong rooms before, but they tended to be better appointed than the one in which he now lurked.”And “(w)hy knock yourself out for a hamburger when your wife serves chateaubriand every night,” on. P. 136, was Paul Newman’s line many, many years ago. Plagiarism anyone? But then on p. 328 we read “(p)lagiarism was good. Plagiarism was just punishment.” And on p. 349, “(p)lagiarism was better. With plagiarism, decorum could be preserved.” Granted that this sentiment was expressed by the (anti-)hero of our novel, Richard Tull, but it wouldn’t be the first time that an (anti-)hero served as a mouthpiece for an author.Apart from the fact that I can’t find a definition anywhere for the word ‘trex,’ which pops up here and elsewhere in the novel on a fairly regular basis, I have to concede that the following paragraph on p. 157 is rather nicely written: “Demi looked all right. It seemed to Richard that she even managed to exude the pub placidity that pubs like to see in their women. Gina, of course, knew all about pubs – their comfort and their boredom. The doors were open to the evening traffic of Notting Hill Gate. Along with the seams of cigarette smoke, the pub vapors and pub humors, the pie waft and the yeasty burp of beer, there was also the breath of cars like a gray mesh at table height. Out on the pavement, only feebly stirred by the little cyclones of rubbish, the twisters of trex, lay several cartons of half-eaten food – meals abandoned in haste or disgust or outright vomitus. Above, the creases of the sky glimmered like cellulite.”It could be that I’m feeling more charitably disposed today towards Mr. Amis, artiste. It could also be that he wrote this paragraph in a sober state. Either way, it works – at least for me. The consonants all fall into place, and the description evokes. One couldn’t ask for more – unless it might be to request that the author WRITE. MORE. LIKE. THIS.I’ll borrow a little snippet of dialogue from Monsieur Amis himself to illustrate my major problem with this book. On p. 176, we find:“Q. If a task was ‘infra dig,’ you would perform it A.tQuickly B.tSlowly C.tUnwillingly ‘Complete non sequitur,’ brayed Richard, slapping the C. ‘You’d be just as likely to do it quickly or slowly. Beneath one’s dignity. Infra dignitatem.’”If the above exchange seems to make little or no sense – perhaps because it lacks a context – trust me: it’s anything but atypical. Non sequituriana reign in this novel the way seagulls reign over a boardwalk, or pigeons rain on the floor of your average Italian piazza. If you look up too often and too carefully, you’re likely to get an eyeful – or step not carefully enough, a sole-full.Or maybe the descriptor I should use is Amis’s own (from p. 179): ‘obscure’ – or better yet (from the following page): ‘haywain,’ as in “(h)e sat in the pub for three hours staring at the haywain of Anstice’s dipped head…” which of course makes perfect sense according to the definition of ‘haywain’ – viz., “an obsolete spelling of ‘hay wain,’ meaning haywagons.”Please forgive the length of the following citation (from p. 328), which – I think – may be a good encapsulation of the author’s intent with this novel. (I did say ‘I think.’)“‘Literature,’ Richard said (and it would be nice to write something like ‘wiping the foam from his lips with his sleeve as the company fell silent.’ But he was drinking cheap red wine and eating pork scratchings and Gina and Gilda were talking about something else) – literature, Richard said, describes a descent. First, gods. Then demigods. Then epic became tragedy; failed kings, failed heroes. Then the gentry. Then the middle class and its mercantile dreams. Then it was about you – Gina, Gilda: social realism. Then it was about them: lowlife. Villains. The ironic age. And he was saying, Richard was saying: Now what? Literature, for a while, can be about us (nodding resignedly at Gywn): about writers. But that won’t last long. How do we burst clear of all this? And he asked them: Whither the novel?”“Whither?” indeed.Perhaps best to conclude with Amis’s own words (on p. 350): “(t)here was even a postmodern car alarm, which trilled out a fruity compendium of all other car alarms. This was the car alarm that all the birds of London would eventually know how to do.”Let’s just hope. Not.RRB12/16/14Brooklyn, NY
Have you ever read a book that you WISH one single person you knew could appreciate the same way you do? Loved a book so much that you wanted to climb into bed with said book and other people, simultaneously reading it, knowing that the act of doing so might be better than other things you could be doing in bed? Well, THAT is how much I love this book.Before I go any further, let me explain that this book is brilliant and bad. It is perhaps shite, even. Brilliant, delicious, experimental shite. The kind I want to roll in. It's hardcore British, so be prepared to constantly reference your UK dictionary. I will also add, just shy of misogyny, that this is a dude's book. If you are female and loved it, we should become friends immediately. Message me.Richard Tull and Gwyn Barry, both writers, have a history as mates from school. For a time, their paths aligned--inferior prose, inferior girlfriends. But suddenly, Gwyn deviates from the course and finds himself in the limelight; the land of glowing literary reviews and a buxom wife descended from royal bloodlines. Whereas Richard's life--and work--takes a nosedive.As the realities of middle age (impotence, male-pattern baldness) set it, Richard comes to a startling conclusion: He must destroy Gwyn Barry. That is the crux of this twisted tale. The humor here is so dark. It is so genius.I will confess that Amis muddles up the story with several subplots that really only serve to confuse the reader. Some of them pan out at the end, and you can see that they were devices used to make a point. Some of them were unnecessary...or perhaps, they ARE necessary, and I am just too ignorant to understand them.I have a profound admiration for Martin Amis. He wields a vicious power with the English language. The kind of power that suspends a reader through several dozen pages where he has ABSOLUTELY no idea what is happening, but has faith that Amis will write a bridge that will carry him to the other side: A place of understanding. And he delivers on that faith, in spades. This is the kind of book that causes you to read the final page, and immediately return to Page 1, to read it again. Vicious Power.
What do You think about The Information (1996)?
“Questa è una biografia letteraria, in un certo senso”: sono le parole con cui Richard Tull descrive il proprio ennesimo romanzo astruso e fallimentare. Anche L’informazione è – in un certo senso – la biografia letteraria che racconta l’impossibile gratificazione artistica del suo protagonista, frustrato dall’insuccesso fino all’annichilimento. Richard sbarca il lunario scrivendo recensioni (di biografie letterarie, tomi polverosi tutti identici tra loro) e facendo penare l’ormai esausta moglie Gina. Dopo un esordio tiepido, alla svolta dei 40 la giovinezza lo ha abbandonato, così come la speranza. Le promesse non sono state mantenute e l’ala del successo gli ha sfiorato il viso, premiando invece il suo amico-nemico-alter ego Gwyn Barry, che finge di ignorare il suo macerarsi in un’invidia dolorosa e ossessiva. C’è poco da fare, nessuno legge i suoi libri. Richard non ama abbastanza i lettori, la sua scrittura non funziona; è questa l’unica vera informazione che riesca a raccogliere, ammettendola a se stesso, prima della fine della storia. Martin Amis scava nel malessere e nella coscienza del suo personaggio senza moraleggiare, lo massacra, lo fa strisciare nella melma, ma non lo disumanizza mai. Il lettore attraversa la satira impietosa dell’infelicità di Richard in un viaggio tragicamente divertente, partecipe delle sue debolezze e delle sue trovate; se non si angoscerà per l’assenza di una vera e propria trama lineare godrà della prosa di Amis (elegante, sagace, movimentata, in perpetuo moto tra l’alto e il basso) e dei personaggi partoriti dalla sua sensibilità, severa nell’evitare la commiserazione ma pur sempre meno spietata di quanto la sua causticità possa far supporre.
—Ubiqua
Amis is a master of style. Every sentence sparkles with wit, and the urge to go back and reread whole sections, is great. That said, the wafer thin plot about a writer, green with envy at the literary success of a close friend, who allegedly cannot 'write for toffee', makes for a rather slow read. What works for me is Amis' virtuoso performance with words, and his assured ease at doing aerobatics with the language. I don't know of too many writers who can spin such a tale with so little yarn. This is high style indeed, as the back cover says it is. The characters are few, and all well etched; so you see them, ticks and all, in the pages. Most are memorable too.At an earlier age, I might have recommended a companion dictionary, as for a non native speaker of English, there is much in there to baffle. And to anybody who nurses an ambition to write that one novel, but has never managed to go past half arsed attempts, be warned; this one is bound to riddle you with more self doubts, and feelings of inadequacy, than you started out with.
—Ashish Chakravarty
Martin Amis is a wizard. As an observer and a chronicler of human conditions - the conditions in which they find and put themselves - I have not read much better. He is cynical, masochistic, but ultimately a truth-teller. Consider a passage from this edition, from Richard Tull, his narrator: "Americans were martyrs to the motors; autos were their autos-da-fe. Never mind what cars have in store for us globally, biospherically; cars - our cars - hate us and humiliate us, at every turn, they humiliate us. Types of car drivers (timid, pushy) are also types of sufferers; the silent, the permanently enraged, the apparently equable, those who persuade themselves that they are running the show...." (247). Aside from the fact that I agree with his assessment all around, it takes a keen observer of humanity to see what conditions we create for ourselves, and those we happen to slide into.Amis and his father have seemingly specialized in creating the anti-hero, the drunk and misanthrope who eyes the world with bitter eyes harmed by slights of existence. But it is an essential hero, one that sees the blandness of life decomposing the true and absolute emotions of the universe - periodically Amis puts his hero through cosmic ruminations that put him in galactic and universal terms. It is this conflict that pairs Richard with Gwyn.Richard is an author whose novels do not sell because they are too complex, and - literally - cause readers to sustain serious medical emergencies. Gwyn, his friend, writes bland, featureless novels that are immensely popular. Are we so lost that we would succumb to bland sub-mediocrity than feel something? Martin Amis hits on a chord that rings with melancholy truth as what is popular becomes art, reaching for nothing other than notability. In a hilarious segment, Gwyn states that he doesn't think in terms of gender, but in terms of people. Richard retorts: "Are You Cut Out To Be a Teacher? Final Question: Would you rather teach (a) history, or (b) geography, or (c) ...children. Well you don't get a choice about teaching children. But there is a choice, and a difference, between history and geography. It must make you feel nice and young to say that being a man means nothing and being a woman means nothing and what matters is being a ... person." (19) It is that personhood that Amis digs at to the point of excruciation. What are our differences, and what are our mass appeals? And which matter more? The information whispers, but do we hear it? Richard's impotence at all things of import, including fatherhood, make him vulnerable, baited by the world. The fact that he is a reviewer of biographies, and is set to write the biography (of sorts) of his "friend" Gwyn, Richard succumbs to all the human vices and virtues, including jealousy and rage. In our modern world, what can we strike out at when it is our friends and their successes that prick us so?As always, the richness of the book comes from the characters, but Amis observes the smut, the trex of modern life through the lens of violence, literature, sex, family, competition, wealth, fame, etc. This is an enormous book, an important book, and a must-read.
—Scott
